


'Kiss Me' Red

by Strawberry_Sweetheart



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy has a crush, Building Self Confidence, Learning to accept yourself, Let boys wear makeup, M/M, Miscommunication, References to ABBA, STeve said fuck gender roles, Steve wears makeup, billy thinks steve is a genuis at low key flirting, but steve is nothing of the sort, the harringrove is mostly towards the end ngl, this is mostly steve falling in love with makeup again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:34:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22154839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strawberry_Sweetheart/pseuds/Strawberry_Sweetheart
Summary: Steve Harrington has always liked pretty little things.He’s always been fascinated with the tiny jewels and trinkets his mother had on her vanity: glass perfume bottles that smelled sweet and flowery and so much more different than his Dad’s cologne, shiny gold tubes of lipstick, pallets of shimmery shadows and vibrant colors, and tiny bottles of nail varnish.---Yes, Steve likes to wear makeup. No, he doesn't give a fuck about what people think.Or rather: Steve learns not to give a fuck.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 17
Kudos: 344





	'Kiss Me' Red

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr is @billy-baby

Steve Harrington has always liked pretty little things. 

He’s always been fascinated with the tiny jewels and trinkets his mother had on her vanity: glass perfume bottles that smelled sweet and flowery and so much more different than his Dad’s cologne, shiny gold tubes of lipstick, pallets of shimmery shadows and vibrant colors, and tiny bottles of nail varnish.

When he was small, in the stage of awkwardly stumbling through sentences and learning to finally color inside the lines, he had found his way into his mother’s spare closet in the living room. He had tried on this black large brimmed sun hat with a white bow on the back, an undoubtedly expensive floral silk scarf, and slipped his feet into much too big black kitten heels. He thought he looked just like his mother, and that made him happy. He had made his way to the kitchen, heels dragging and clopping on the tile and his chubby hand holding up the brim of the hat to keep it from falling over his eyes. 

“Well, would you look at that Bonita. Our son has a better fashion sense that you do,” his dad deadpans, peering over the newspaper with his thin framed reading glasses.

His mom stopped stirring the sauce pot and looked over her shoulder to Steve giggling in the doorway. “Oh my lord, is that my Hermès scarf!” She lowered the stove heat to a low simmer and quickly wiped her hands on a dish towel, fretfully looking at her precious scarf mopping up the dust of the kitchen floor.

Mr. Harrington huffed good naturedly, “Don’t fuss Dear, we can always get you a new one. Say, would you dig out that old camera in the living room drawer?” 

Somewhere in the house there are two copies of a photo where a tiny Steve sits on the couch with a toothy grin, dwarfed by his mother’s clothes.

When he learned to finally sit nice and still and quiet enough, his mother had started to take him to church with her on Sunday’s instead of paying the nanny to watch over him. In an attempt to try to keep him from wrinkling his itchy suit and tie with his fidgeting, she’d sit him on her lap in the morning while she applied her makeup in front of the vanity. Wondering curious hands found there way to powder compacts and shiny modest earrings. He’d hold it up in front of his mother’s face in a silent game of _where does this go_. And his mother would take the offered earrings and adorn her ears with it, and she would take the offered compact and apply the coral colored powder to her cheeks, all the while Steve sat there, looking up at her entranced by her routine. 

Sometimes when he fussed too much, his mom would would tap all the excess power off her brush and run it over his face, tickling his nose and neck. He likes the softness of them, giggled when it attacked his neck, sneezed when it ran over his nose. Sometimes, when he impatiently grabbed at pretty decorated metallic tubes, dangerously close to opening them and smearing the creamy pigment inside all over his Sunday suit and his mother’s Sunday dress, she’d take the tube and drag the closed-capped tip of the lipstick over his lips to sate his playfully exploring hands. And Steve was to young to realize she wasn’t actually doing anything, but he was far too pleased in the thought that it made him just like his mother. 

But as he got older his mother started to find it less charming and endearing, had stopped indulging his curiosity. She started putting child locks on her spare closet when Steve got in the habit of pulling out her finer hats and scarves out to play dress up. She stopped taking her shopping when she needed to buy her clothes or makeup when she noticed how he showed a bit _too much_ interest, running his hand through different textured shoes and dresses, dipping his fingers in different colored shadows and messily running stained fingertips over his face. 

The cosmetologist would laugh at his antics, clearly endeared and amused, and his mom would apologize and ask for a makeup wipe. 

“It’s no problem! Really,” she would say and hand her a cotton ball damp with makeup remover, “you have such an adorable kid.” And his mother would thank her with a practiced tight lipped smile and harshly removed the colors from his face. 

From there on out, all he would hear from her is how he couldn’t wear this or that or buy a certain toy because _”that’s for girls, Steven. Why don’t we buy you some nice toys for boys, hm? I’ll get you anything you want.”_ Anything, of course, as long as it was from the boy’s section. He thought it was stupid. It wasn’t that he didn’t like boy stuff. He liked his G.I. Joe action figures and plastic dinosaurs and collection of tiny model cars. But he didn’t understand why those were considered boy stuff. He thought it was stupid. Why did things have to be for boys or girls? Why couldn’t they be for both? 

During times his mom would visit Carol’s mom, he and Carol would sneak off into her playroom to play House while the adults talked over tea and small cucumber sandwiches. He would always look forward to their play dates because it was the only time he could play with baby dolls and tea party sets. Occasionally, him and Carol would trade toys. During a particularly memorable trade-off, he had given her some of his tiny tin soldiers that she hid from her parents in her pink plastic teapot, and she gave him a pink stuffed bunny that came with a tiny yellow bows in her ears and matching yellow sundress that her parents bought her for her birthday instead of the Spider-Man action figure she had asked for. He named her Rosie.

His dad had found Rosie once, when he had been negligent and left Rosie lying on the floor alongside his G.I. Joe. He had half expected his dad to yell at him, to repeat what his mother would always tell him. But instead he rubbed at his temple and crouched down to look into Steve’s quivering pouting face and eyes filled to the brim with tears. He promised that Steve could keep Rosie as long as his mom didn’t find out and as long as Steve promised to try harder in school. “Just, please don’t start cry,” he said with a strained face and left it at that.

“It’s our fault isn’t it — for letting him get away with it for so long?” Steve has snuck out of his room late one night to get a drink of water, but stopped when he noticed the light coming through the cracks of the door from his parents room; he pressed his ear to the door, face smashed against it as he listened to the muffled voices.

“It’s not the end of the world, Bonita.” His father’s monotone voice came through. His father never was good at comfort, he knew this from all the times he woken up from nightmares, when his parents let him watch a pg-13 movies on Halloween even though he was only 8, and ended up wondering to their bedside with teary eyes.

_I had a nightmare,_ he would say and wipe at his cheeks with the sleeve of his Spider-Man pajama onesie. And his mother would make space in the middle for him, and his dad would awkwardly pat his head and whisper, _”There There.”_

“Our son’s growing up to be a — a… fairy” Her voice wavered the way it did when she was close to crying while watching her novellas. “And you don’t even care!”

Steve frowned and worried his lip. He didn’t know why his mom sounded like being a fairy was such a bad thing. They were pretty and silly in all the books his nanny would read to him during bedtime, the ones with dragons and princes saving princesses. He liked tinkerbell and the way she glowed and glittered in his favorite move, _Peter Pan_ , liked her pretty wings. He heard his dad let out a tired sigh.

“It’s not the end of the world, Bonita, but he’s still our son.”

“No, this is my punishment for wanting a girl, isn’t it,” she spat out like it was a joke, a mockery. He had gone back to his room without his drink of water and buried his face in his pillow.

The next day his mom has raided his room. She dumped the stuff from his drawers and toy box on the bed, sifting through it and pulling out things she deemed “inappropriate for young boys to have.” She pulled out loose strands of ribbon that he kept because they were pretty and pink and Carol liked to tie them into his hair. She pulled out kiddish nail polish that Carol had given him that was easy to put on and easier to quickly peel off when his mom got home. The last thing she gathered was Rosie, and waved it in front of his face in her tightly clenched shaking fists as she yelled at him. He had wailed and looked through blurry eyes towards the doorway where his dad stood, but his dad did nothing besides take his reading glasses off and rub his nose bridge. His mom had thrown everything she collected that day, including Rosie, in the garbage bin. 

After that day he stopped looking at “girl stuff”. Had stopped playing house with Carol and the rest of the girls during break. Had started playing ball with Tommy and roughhoused with the rest of boys his age. And when Tommy has asked if he was okay, he had nodded and smiled a tight lipped smile, looking like the spitting image of his mother with that practiced smile. Because his mother seemed happier with him lately, so he’s okay. He’d be okay.

***  
Steve sat drinking a glass of scotch at the edge of the same pool that was the breeder of so many nightmares, with his feet in the water in some sort of ritual of self torment. Maybe he was a masochist, he entertained the thought, maybe in some sick twisted way, he thought he deserved it. He pressed fingers into his lips and cheeks, marks from the fight at the Byers long healed, but he wishes they there still present on his face. He wishes they still hurt when he pressed his fingers into where the bruises had sat fat and swollen, the throbbing pain had been a much needed reminder that he was alive and breathing and every one else was alive and breathing, too. All probably asleep in bed at this late hour, air filling lungs and hearts beating rhythmically.

What had been normal and steady in his world had been recently flipped upside down. Not just with the whole literal Upside Down, but his relationship with Nancy, his relationship with his friends, his relationship with his parents…

He had been doing well, he thought. He had had a loving girlfriend and a loving relationship... that had been twisted to be oned side and joke. He had had his friends that he’d clung to since childhood, but ended up parting with them when he realized that along the way to growing up, they had all lost themselves enough that it was time to part ways. His parents… his mom has been increasingly paranoid with her aging looks, thinking dad has been fooling around with some young pretty piece behind her back, following him across the states during business trips more often than she used because you know, _she doesn’t trust him_. And his dad, trying to ease her mind, had tried to buy her peace through designer labels and planned getaways for just the two of them, leaving the house more empty than not. 

And when they were around, his mom would only go as far to engage in obligated small conversation, “How's your day? That’s nice. How’s your girlfriend? Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Done anything exciting lately? That’s a shame.” His dad would chew him out over his grades and the missing drink from a bottle of scotch: “Hope you’re really enjoying your drinking away your youth because one day life’s going to come and kick you in the ass and you’ll finally wake up. And by then you’ll be working some low end job and it’ll be too late to shape up.” He almost missed his more indifferent attitude from his earlier years. It’s just… he guesses that with everything that’s been going on lately, he wishes he actually had a family to fall back on.

It’s not that he’s envious of the Byers (really how could he be with everything that’s been thrown their way), it’s just that they’re always there for each other. Always there in a way he can’t say he’s ever known. They don’t have a large house in Loch Nora, or designer clothes, nor do they have Harrington bottomless wallets. But they’ve got each other. The Byers kids have a loving mom who would do anything for her kids, went to hell and back for them. He wonders what that’s like, to have a mother ask “How’s your day been, sweetheart?” and actually mean it. The Byers brothers have a bond where they can cry on each other’s shoulders and share everything with, even their pain. He wonders what that would have been like, to have a sibling to share the emptiness of home with and fill the quiet. 

He swallows down his last drink of scotch and throws the glass into the trees of his backyard, hearing it shatter once it hits a tree. Fuck you, he thinks, but doesn’t know who exactly he’s adressing. The Byers? His parents? Nancy? Hargrove? Or whatever took Barb. 

He looks down at his reflection staring back at him, tired and slightly distorted from the ripples of the occasional summer breeze. He puts on a dazzling picture perfect smile, the same one he wears when someone asks “Are you okay?” It’s evolved so much from the awkward pursed smile from when he was young, so much more believable, now, and perfect in the way only manufactured things can be. Perfect in the way that he almost manages to convince himself that he really is. He’s okay.

_”...one day life’s going to come and kick you in the ass and you’ll finally wake up.”_

Well dad, look who just woke up. 

He lets the smile drop and his reflection follows, afterall who’s here to play for the fool other than himself. For God’s sake, he’s almost died twice, thrice if you count the beat down, and the only person that bothers to ask with an earnest “how are you” is a thirteen year old kid with a gummy toothed smile. He’s done pretending to be cool for the crowd like he’s someone worth giving a shit about, done pretending that his family is picture perfect, done pretending to be the son his mom wanted. He’s done pretending that he’s perfectly okay.

He walks into his parents room and sits down on his mother’s old vanity; it’s been over 10 years since he’s looked at himself in this mirror, since he’s sat on his mother's lap on Sunday mornings when she still allowed him to play with her brushes. He picks up a tube of Lancôme lipstick and upcaps it: bright pink. He applies it was a shaky unpracticed hand in foreign movements. He can feel his heart beat against chest, can hear blood rushing in his ears in a high pitched ringing as he traces the edges of his lips with the pink bullet, vaguely realizes he’s crying and blinks in a futile attempt to clear his vision. He leans back when it’s done and takes a gander. Red puffy eyes and nose, tear stained cheeks, and bright pink lips. It’s messy and amateur and like learning to color inside the lines again. It doesn’t look good, not even close. Too smudged and patchy.

But it makes him feel awake and alive like the hurt from a split lip all those months ago.

Awake and Alive and Not Dead. 

He wipes it off after finding makeup remover and leans into the mirror again, this time with his elbow planted on the vanity surface to steady his hand, and applies it again, slowly and less hasty. Less desperately. He pulls back once more and takes in his work. Better. He takes it off and starts again and he repeats this all night. At some point it gets harder with how wide his lipped are stretched in an honest smile that he fails to fight down, but when he finally goes to bed, lips red and raw from how many times he’s scrubbed pigment off of them, he falls into a dreamless sleep.

He’s okay.

***

The thing is, his mother’s vanity doesn’t have that many things on it. She must take most of her good makeup, if not all, with her on her trips. He gathers what he can from the drawers and takes inventory of what he does have: a half finished coal black eyeliner pencil, bright pink lipstick (the wrong shade of pink for his skin tone, fits more of his mother’s olive tone she gets from tanning), and a broken blush compact. And he huffs.His credit card sits heavy in his back pocket, increasingly enticing with multiple paychecks from Scoops — just sitting there.

Fuck it. 

He takes the stairs down two at a time and takes the keys from the holder as he breezes past the door, only barely stopping long enough to lock it. He turns on the beemer and listens to ABBA play on the radio on blast with the windows down, beginning to mouth the words to the song.

_Chiquitita, you and i know_  
_How the heartaches come and they go and the scars they’re leaving..._

It feels good to have the sticky summer breeze ruffling his hair wildly and carry off the sound of his singing, which is progressively getting louder. 

He feels good.

_But the sun is still in the sky and shining above you_  
_Let me hear you sing once more like you did before_  
_Sing a new song, Chiquitita_

\---

The mall is crowded, it’s the weekend so what did he expect really, but it seems as if the whole town has gathered here today. He makes his way towards Scoops, shouldering past a surprising short line of customers to give Robin a shit eating grin. He can see Robin breathe deeply through her nose and compose herself.

“What are you doing here, dingus?” She scoops up strawberry ice cream into a waffle cone, the small girl in front of her is on her very tippy toes to reach her arm across the counter as far as she can, holding out a mess of coins and crumpled bills. “Can’t you see I’m a little busy here?” 

“This is important! What time do you get off of work?” Robin picks only the amount of change she needs from the small girl’s hand, leaving the girl to curl her tiny fist around the leftover coins and curl her other hand tightly around her waffle cone with a small “t’ank you!”, attempting to skip out but slightly trips over bright blue untied laces. Steve’s hand instinctively reaches out to steady her before she meets the floor.

“My shift ends in 30, Popeye. I’m sure you can survive till then. Ahoy! What can I get you?” 

Robin moves to the next customer, and Steve kneels on the floor to tie the girl’s sparkly blue laces with a strong double knot while she licks at her already dripping cone. She smiles shyly when Steve tells her to keep her laces tied, or at least tucked in. Her blonde curls bounces along with her furious nodding before she catches up to her mother that stands by the door. The woman shoots him a grateful smile.

Robin adds a tally mark to a newly added Mom Steve columns on the white board.

It’s thirty minutes exactly when Robin comes find him, greeting him with a “What’s with the hair?” It’s wind blown and sticking out in random places and a mess. But he can’t bring himself to care. The buzz he feels has a grin cemented on his face. He doesn’t bother replying to her question.

“I need you to me help out.”

“Okaay …with?” 

She waits for him to go one and really, he shouldn’t find it so hard to get the words out of his mouth. His grin wavers. Instead of answering, he grabs her hand and hauls ass to Macy’s, stopping every once and a while when Robin bends down to pull up her socks again. They stop in front of a shelf filled with various shades of skin tones, all in tiny glass bottles with different brand labels promising a different “finish”. 

“I need your help choosing my skin tone,” he says after a while and tries not to squirm under Robin’s studying gaze. She’s smart, like so so smart, and Steve knows he doesn’t need to say more than those words for her to understand — he’s grateful for that. He doesn’t know if he’d be able to tell her any other way. She nods and picks up the first vial labeled Fair #4, opens it and begins to swatch it on his outstretched arm. 

They leave with more than just foundation. By the end of it, Steve has all the essentials for a base and brushes to match. He’s chosen natural shadows that he thinks he’d be able to “get away with”, modest colors in light complementing flesh tones. He’s bought a couple of flesh toned lipsticks and light coral blushes. By the end of it, his debit card is wailing and Robin can’t help the smile on her face. 

So he got to work, spending hours in front of the mirror, just… practicing. Robin would come over sometimes and lend him a hand, lend him old _cosmo_ s and _Seventeen_ magazines with tips and tricks. And eventually he got better. 

He got good.

He perfected the “no makeup” look as Robin would say: so subtle you could hardly notice. His blusher is light like a natural flush against his cheeks; in the summer heat no one looks twice. A light coat of mascara to lengthen and brighten the eyes without excessive drama and groomed brows that framed his eyes beautifully. Discoloration from tiredness or blemishes gone like magic under a bit of foundation or concealer. And a tad of lipstick blended into his lips until it was just a tint of color, like he’s been biting his lips or eating cherries. It looked good, and most importantly, he _felt_ good. He felt more comfortable in his skin than ever before because this time, he felt that he had something to be proud of, a skill he had worked had to obtain. The pride ate away at his insecurities, he had found something he was good at, and that pride override any feelings of shame he had felt when he was small.

And one day he was feeling bold. It was the morning and he had woken up before his alarm, courtesy of nightmares, so instead of lying in bed until it rang, he got ready for work. He showered and styled his hair, dressed in his uniform, and ate breakfast. He looked at the clock on the wall. He had an hour ‘til he left. He bit his lip, worrying it between his teeth as he thought of the hidden makeup pouch under his bed, fingers itching to wrap around the brushes. Or maybe the fidgeted from the left over nerves from a restless night. Still — he walked up the stairs and reached upset his bed where the bag laid against the wall, opening it and spilling its contents on his sheets. 

And there he sat, criss cross on the bed with a handheld mirror, applying foundation under his eyes to cover the dark circles there. He concentrated on making a thin line of dark brown close to his lash line, concentrated enough that he forgot what the nightmare had even been about — demogorgans? Demodogs? Maybe something entirely different conjured up in his mind. But the softness of his brushes soothed away the fear, comforted his nerves, and the makeup gave him confidence that the Upside Down and adult life had claimed. 

“Stop fidgeting. People are gonna start to think you’re high.” 

Steve had gotten to work and immediately regretted his decision. Doubt crept in, slowly gobbling him up for the inside. What if people could tell? He hasn’t done anything noticeable, not enough to pop. Was everyone staring at him? God, it felt like it. That old lady knew. She definitely knows. Why does she keep staring at him? Why else other than _he’s got something on his face._

“Is it noticeable?” He asked Robin in the break room.

“For the billionth time: No. You look fine, like a total stud.” 

When he had gotten to work, the first thing he asked Robin for was a makeup wipe, to which Robin denied him of. “I don’t have one anyways.” She had been sympathetic and consoling, understanding of his fear — she still was, but Steve could tell he was starting to get on her nerves.

A total stud. Right. He could work with that. The amount of times he’s scooped the wrong ice cream is astounding. But to be fair, it’s kinda hard for him to focus when it felt like everyone was staring at him, like their eyes were piercing and judging and suddenly like every low murmur or whisper of giggle was aimed at him.

No one noticed that day— at least— no one said anything. 

He got home and took it off right away as hastily as possible, went to sleep with smudged mascara that clinched persistently at his lashes, only to be dragged down with his salty tears and rubbing fists. 

He didn’t touch his makeup for two days. 

For two whole days, he had picked it up only to move it from his night stand to his desk, back to his night stand and then kicked under the bed. It was his own personal hell to have something that felt like happiness right there in the form of powders and creams, and not allowed to touch it. It was worse than when his mom had thrown away his stashed ribbons and gloss and Rosie. It was harder to let it go when he had indulged in it for so long with no mother to demand that he leave his doors unlocked and routinely checking his drawers.

On the third day, he got a phone call from Claudia, pleading him to please watch the kids, thanks sweetheart. The thing was that Steve had the biggest house and the highest tolerance for a house full of rowdy boys. So whenever any of the kids begged their parents for a sleepover they would immediately turn around and go “how about that babysitter of yours, Dustin? Is he free tonight?” And the answer was always yes he’s free. Unfortunately. 

Steve was making popcorn in the kitchen with Will where the only noise was the popping of kernels and not the insistent screaming of Mike and Dustin arguing over whichever movie they should watch next while Lucas begged them to please just pick one. He gave Will the bowl to take as he popped in Eggos for El, who was allowed to come after Steve got a vigorous interrogation and was, apparently, good enough to supervise the kids despite not being able to supervise himself. But he didn’t tell the Chief that.

El sat on the only arm chair while Lucas and Dustin were hogging one couch and Will took a seat next to Mike, who looked like a kick puppy when El didn’t sit next to him. Steve sat on the plush carpet floor. 

“Pretty,” El said. And yeah the girl on screen was really pretty. She had long hair and a flowy dress with a dainty necklace around her neck. 

“You’re pretty, too.” Mike flushed red at his own words and Dustin gagged.

“I like her dress.” El had this almost wistful look in her eyes. Something he recognized in himself when he was younger and looked at all the things he couldn’t have.

He pondered for a while. El usually wore jeans or overalls, sometimes hand-me down flannels. Things that didn’t stand out or draw attention because that’s the last they needed was for someone to notice her. Dustin’s weakness is that he can never keep his mouth shut so Steve knows. Steve knows how when they first found El, her hair was buzzed to her scalp and how she wore a tattered lab gown. He knew that she had grown up in a lab her whole life. He wondered how many times she saw women in the labs with long hair tied back in a length she was never allowed to keep. He wondered if they wore things under their lab coats, colorful blouses and pretty wedding rings, all the things she couldn’t have. 

And he thought about now. How Hopper struggled to get her to cut her hair until he promised it was just for a trim. He thought about the times she looked at her reflection with a small smile on her face, twirling a curl around her finger and tucking a strand behind her ear because it was long enough now. He thought about how she could have things now that she couldn’t before and got up with a quick excuse.

He grabbed the bag under his bed, knowing that Hopper would most likely kill him. But he’s pretty sure El’s at the age where girls normally experiment with makeup and kids were starting to try to develop their own unique individual style. El had already missed out on building normal childhood memories, there’s no reason for her to keep missing out at normal childhood. Without a second thought, he pushed open the door to his parents' room and opened a box where he knew his mom kept her jewelry and begun to pull out pieces he hasn’t seen her wear in years, or ever. Things she wouldn’t even notice were gone. And he took them with him downstairs.

“Here,” he plopped down the bag on her lap and continued at her inquiring look,” You can keep what you like.” 

“Really?” 

He nodded and El beamed. 

“She doesn’t need that stuff.” Mike wrinkled his nose snobbishly when El started to pull out tinted glosses and eye shadows from the bag, dipping her fingers in the colors and rubbing the pigment between her fingers with a fascinated look. She pursed her lips and looked towards Steve.

“You don’t need them,” he agreed and swallowed, blinked away his blurry vision, “but it’s okay to want something if it makes you feel happy.” He wondered if those words for more for himself than for El. 

El outstretched a hand with a brush towards him after she considered him with a look, “Teach me?” 

Steve stiffened and he suddenly hyper aware of the boy’s silence behind him as he took the offered brush and patted the floor beside him for El to sit. 

“Are those yours, Steve.” Came Will’s timid voice.

“They’re my Mom’s.” He began to apply blush to El’s cheek. It was only a half lie.

“Your mom uses a Spider-Man bag for her makeup?” Mike yelped and dropped a pop tart on his face when Dustin elbowed him in the ribs causing everyone to laugh. No other comment was made other than to tell El she looked nice. She left with some of his makeup and with colorful dangling bracelets when Steve’s insistence that he could just replace them.

The next morning he got his makeup bag, only weighing slightly lighter, and got ready for work, working around the missing items and making a mental note on what he needed to buy again. Robin smiled when he came into work, extra bright, and punched him in the arm.

“Nice to have you back, Popeye.” 

And for a week, no one noticed, no one said anything.

*** 

It was a regular day with the regular amount of customers and the regular routine at work. It was ordinary and nothing screamed special about it. Nothing edged his nerves in warning though he felt like they should have when Billy Hargrove strode in in his white tank top and short shorts, his Hawkin’s Pool cap rested firmly on his head. He strode in the way he usually walked about, visually loud and confident and with a wide shit eating grin the moment he spotted Steve, doubling his pace straight for him. 

Steve isn’t one to hold a grudge. It doesn’t mean he’s soft, or forgives easily, or a pushover. He’s just never been the one to get hung over something that been done and dealt with. So, he doesn’t hold anything against Billy for that night — not that he doesn’t keep his distance to avoid confrontation — and maybe it’s because he recognizes something in Billy that he recognizes in himself. He looks at Billy and sees a guy with issues. It’s glaringly obvious. Because people without issues don’t go swinging their dick around like Hargrove does.

But it’s been a while since that night, months of avoiding each other’s eyes lead to an easing of tensions until it seemed okay to acknowledge the other — nothing more than a quick nod aimed his way during a party, not quiet tasting like an apology but a token of respect. It makes seeing Hargrove — actually talking to him — all the more alien.

“Ahoy! What can I get for you?” His smile is sweet as apple pie, the epitome of customer service.

“Harrington,” he says deep and low as he leans closer to the counter and against the glass dividers, “so this is where you’ve been shacked up. What? Daddy finally put you to work?” 

He rolls his eyes because… honestly? Yeah. But he’s not about to give him that satisfaction. “Please step back from the dividers. There’s a reason that they’re there,” he says like he's ever cared about health protocols.

“Pistachio on a waffle cone,” Billy says finally and Steve starts scooping ice cream. It’s a bit weird hearing Billy order pistachio, it’s the type of flavors only old people enjoy, but there’s something weird about Billy ordering ice cream in general. Like he’s a human or something. It’s a bit out of place when you can’t imagine seeing the guy eating anything besides cigarette butts and kegs of beer.

Billy takes his cone with one hand, and reaches out with the other to flick Steve’s lip. “That’s a nice color on you, pretty boy.” He pulls back, licking his ice cream with a mocking grin before he turns away and struts out the doors. 

Steve is paralyzed to his spot. His eyes are wide as they track Billy’s retreating form, the blood drains from his face and his knees feel like they can buckle beneath his weight. He hears the employee door swing open.

“Was that Hargrove? Hey! Where are you going? Steve?” 

He manages to make his legs move, brushing past Robin quickly with his head ducked. He didn’t want her to see him cry. He retreats the freezers, falling against the shelves of ice cream containers and pulls his knees to his chest, burying his face in his hands. He feels cold slender hands wrap around his wrists, rubbing soothingly, and a voice that reminds him to breathe. 

“Did he do something? Tell me and I’ll go kick his ass right now,” Robin says, half serious, half joking...

Steve drops his hands and looks at Robin. He’s sure his mascara is smudged from tears. “He noticed.” He whispers. Robin makes a sympathetic “Oh”.

“He’s gonna tell everyone. Fuck. If word gets around I’m dead,” he laughs sounding forced and strained. The rest of the day passes in a blur.

The next day he gets ready for work, side eyeing his bag of touch-me-nots and feels, for the first time in quite a while, the rising heat of anger. He feels the warmth under his skin that urges him to push back because there is a need to… to just… do something. The need to assert himself and throw a huge fuck-you to a world that gives way to many shits about what others get up to and decides that Billy Hargrove is an asshole, but he’ll be damned if he lets his life revolve around being afraid. He’s faced death numerous times and encountered fucked up other worldly shit and god damn he’s going to wear blush if he wants to because in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter. In this whole wide world filled with billions of people — it doesn’t matter.

This time Billy comes in with a peeved looking Max trailing behind, and once they’re close enough, Billy pushed her forward and tells her, “get your stupid ice cream”, to which she rolls her eyes. Robin covers it, starts scooping up ice creaming when Max requests, “Sherbert or whatever.” That leaves Steve by the side of the counter, eyes narrowed as he looks as a too smug Billy.

“Hargrove.”

“Pretty boy,” his eyes drift down to look at his lips. Steve knows he’s looking at his lips because he specifically chose this color of pink that is slightly brighter than what he usually wears in public. Because nothing says fuck-you like a bold lipstick color she’s learned. Steve expects Billy to sneer, to say something mean. What he doesn’t expect is Billy to lean his hip against the counter and smile that is something soft and indifferent. “New color?”

“It’s called Orgasm,” he says because — that’s what its called, but also because he has a death wish and if Billy is uncomfortable with a guy wearing makeup and then Steve is going to make sure he makes him as uncomfortable as possible, wants to make him squirm. 

Billy chokes. It’s the most off balanced that Steve has ever seen him and it feels like a victory.

“Can we go now or…” Max looks a tad confused, eyeing the both of them.

——  
It becomes routine.

Weirdly enough.

Steve wears a variety of different shades, he keeps pushing his own limits choosing brighter and more noticeable shades. A mob hasn’t come waving their pitchfork, so Steve guessed Billy has kept his mouth shut. Even when more people keep giving him weird looks. He chalks it off to the fact his blusher is steadily getting pinker.

Billy comes in with Max, but most of the time he’s alone now. He’ll say something snarky and Steve will snark back. They’ll talk about anything and nothing at all. And somehow he ends up collecting these nothings, these tiny pieces of Billy, and gathering them together in a vault, trying to fit them all like a puzzle until he can step back and admire the picture that he sees — and he very much admires it. It’s a guy who smells too strongly of cologne and will heatedly argue his opinions on movies. A guy who puts a lot of effort into his looks, but whose nails are bitten down to the nail bed because he has a habit of nibbling them when he spaces out. 

A guy who maybe _feels_ things, someone human and capable of remorse and embarrassment and hates cherries on his Sunday ice cream and scrunches his nose when Wham! plays overhead on the speakers…

A guy with an impish smile and blue eyes that seem bluer some days than others and freckles that adorn his nose and legs that constantly move under the table because he needs to be in constant movement.

A guy who looks at his lips and if its a shade he hasn’t seen before he’ll asks, “new color?” And if it’s a shade he has seen before he’ll try to remember the name.

“Cherry… Paris? No, its Date Night.”

“Secret Crush.”

“What? You haven’t fuckin’ worn that color before, I swear.” 

A guy who is as sore loser as he is unobservant, can’t even tell what’s different when Steve shows up to work with honey colored highlights. And it’s impossibly endearing.

——

One night, when nightmares cling to his eyelids even once he’s wide awake and his collection of brushes and colors don’t ease the trembling of his hands, he takes a ride to the only 24 hour diner that’s a popular truck stop to pick up something to fill his empty stomach on his way to the quarry. It’s a clear sky and the air is slightly humid with summer, the stars are speckled and welcoming and the night doesn’t seem so dark, so menacing, when his tongue is numb from the strawberry milkshake that freezes his burger-greased hands. 

It’s by chance, really, when a car pulls up next to him playing muffled music from inside that Steve doesn’t even have to turn around to know who it is. The bimmer dips slightly with the new add weight as Billy sits on the hood, his thigh close enough that Steve can feel the warmth. 

“What’s someone like you doing in a place like this?” Steve rolls his eyes and lifts his shake in gesture.

“Wanted something to eat.”

“And what? You’re not gonna ask me the same?” 

“Well, I don’t really care,” Steve teases and chews the straw to stop himself from smiling at Billy’s wounded expression.

Its quiet, neither are really intent on talking and both more than comfortable with one another that there is no need to fill the silence. Still, Steve can’t help but feel self conscious when he feels Billy’s eyes studying his face.

“What?” He’s more than aware at how harsh he sounded, but Billy’s eyes meet his and there is something soft there that looks different in the low light of the bimmer’s headlights than the fluorescent lights of the ice cream shop. 

“New color?”

He’s confused for a moment until he brings his fingers up to lightly touch his lips. His face warmths. He forgot to take off his makeup before leaving the house, and wonders what the people at the diner thought of his bold rose red lips. He finds that he doesn’t care what they think.

“It’s called Kiss Me,” he says by instinct and looks at Billy through his lashes, a bit unsure of himself in a way he hasn’t felt in a long time. Billy’s never seen him wear such a dark color that was a nude or pink tone color.

“Yeah?” 

Steve tilts his head, confused. “Yeah…”

He goes stalk still as Billy leans in quickly, holding his face between his hands and pressing his lips to his. They’re chapped but warm and still is too shocked to close his eyes. He looks at Billy’s furrowed brows and the way his long eyelashes flutter. And all at once, he comes back to himself.

“Whoa, Billy, wait —” he pushes at his chest and Billy has the audacity to look as confused as Steve feels. “You kissed me. Why did you kiss me”

“I… you just said…”

“Yeah, I said ‘Kiss Me’ because that’s the name of the color?”

Billy pushes himself off the hood and mutters a quick “forget it”. But Steve is still caught up in the kiss to let him go, grabs his wrist before he can leave. 

“Look, just forget this fucking happened. Okay? Just let it go.” His voice is low and his eyes are narrowed, but Steve just rolls his eyes. Steve once saw him accidentally choke on the Oreo pieces of his ice cream, he’s not about to be intimidated by him again.

“Can you just tell me why, Billy?”

“Don’t play stupid, you — I thought — you’ve been flirting with me and I — “

What.

“What?”

“I said forget it.” He tugged his wrist loose, but Steve grabbed his hand instead. He’s afraid that if he lets him go now, he’ll never talk to him again. And they’ve come all this way, he’s not about to let it go to waste.

“No. I want to know.”

“You’re so stubborn. You know that?” At Steve’s raised eyebrow, he shoved his hands in his pockets and avoided his gaze. “The colors, I thought that was your way of letting me know you’re into me.”

Oh. _Oh._ Oh shit.

Steve face warms and he feels hot under the collar. He didn’t realize how suggestive the names sounded. No, he knew how suggestive they were — more than suggestive. Lipstick colors named ‘Blow Me’ and ‘Sex’. He just didn’t think that they would be taken that way. He thought back to the interactions with Billy, the makeup he’d use. Flesh tones named ‘You’re Cute’ and ‘Ask Me Out’’. Pink colors called ‘Into you’ and ‘Secret Crush’. It made their game seem like there was a double meaning behind it, and to Billy there was.

“Well, what if I liked it?”

“Steve —” 

“What if I am into you. What if I want you to kiss me again.”

“You sure that's not more than just a color?” He was bitter about it, Steve could tell. Embarrassed. Cute. He couldn’t help the tiny laugh that escaped him.

“My parents aren’t home. We can go to my place and maybe I can answer that question for you.”

**Author's Note:**

> so there are a lot of smutty fic about steve or billy wearing makeup and I wanted to write one were its not a fetish or kinky, i live for the smut, but I also wanted a fic where it wasn't sexualized.
> 
> I guess the suggestive lipstick names sort of sexualized it but it also comes from the time my friend asked me what blush i had on and i ended up saying "Deep Throat" in front of a lady that said "excuse me" all scandalized cuz she had a kid with her. In my defense, that's what it was called and its not like the kid knows what that is. My bad lady.
> 
> Also steves mom throwing away his shit is me still being petty about my dad selling my PlayStation when i was small cuz he thought i was spending too much time playing games for girl.


End file.
